


Heart-Shaped Box

by red_starshine



Series: Holidays With Chas & Constantine [2]
Category: Constantine (TV), Hellblazer & Related Fandoms
Genre: Chocolate, Fluff, M/M, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, Valentine's Day, Valentine's Day Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-12
Updated: 2015-02-12
Packaged: 2018-03-12 00:54:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,523
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3338117
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/red_starshine/pseuds/red_starshine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Chas gives John a gift for Valentine's Day.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Heart-Shaped Box

**Author's Note:**

> I’ve got no idea why this show brings out the fluff addict in me, considering, y'know, it's an adaptation of 'Hellblazer', but here we are.
> 
> Not beta-ed, so John’s dialogue hasn’t been britpicked.

There was a small candy shop a few blocks away from Renee’s place that made the best homemade chocolate Chas had ever encountered. It was tucked away in a small building with a storefront meant to resemble a small cottage, with only the sign hanging above the door and the faint aroma of milk chocolate hinting that it was actually a candy shop and not an overly-twee Brooklyn bar.

For as long as he and Renee had been together, every Valentine’s Day he’d gotten her a box of milk chocolates filled with milk-chocolate covered creams, caramels, and jellies in a small white cardboard box shaped like a heart, with a red rose printed on the front in shiny foil. After Geraldine had been born, he’d started getting her the same box.

Last year had been particularly bad. He'd missed Valentine's Day due to being held in a cell by a madman with John for a few days. When he'd finally gotten to Brooklyn, Renee had refused her own box and only grudgingly allowed Chas to leave Geraldine’s box for her. Hurt and upset, he’d dropped the box into the lap of a young mother waiting with her daughter at the bus stop a few blocks away from the house and gotten back in his cab to meet back up with John a few days ahead of schedule.

If he was being completely honest with himself, the nervous-looking man who’d served him with divorce papers when he’d stopped at the cab depot in Brooklyn two weeks later hadn’t been a surprise.

He and Renee were on better terms this year. After the demonic scare with Geraldine, Renee seemed to understand how hard he was trying to keep her and Geraldine in his life while also doing what needed to be done with John.

At the same time, the simple fact was that their relationship would never be the way it’d been before the bar fire, and while Chas was trying his hardest, it just wasn’t enough to keep their marriage together.

Before Chas’d dropped by for his visit with Renee and Geraldine, he’d stopped at the chocolate shop and picked up the two boxes of Valentine’s Day chocolate he’d ordered by phone right before the store had closed in the early afternoon. The frazzled young woman behind the counter had disappeared into the back and returned with a large paper bag, ‘CHANDLER’ written across the front in marker, and a receipt stapled to it. After paying for the two boxes, Chas took the bag to his cab and looked inside, pulling out the two boxes for Renee and Geraldine.

There was still one more heart-shaped box inside the bag.

“Huh.” Chas took another look at the receipt. He’d definitely only paid for two.

The store was dark when he walked back, the metal security grate over the storefront. Sighing, he wrote a quick note on the back of an envelope he’d found in the glove compartment, placed enough cash to cover the cost of the third box of chocolate inside the envelope, and shoved it through the security grate and under the door.

His visit with Renee and Geraldine was shorter than he’d hoped. After dropping off the chocolates and picking Geraldine up from Renee, he took her onto the subway heading into Manhattan. Their first stop was the Metropolitan Museum of Art, but Geraldine didn't seem very interested in the art, and they’d left after an hour. He let her pick out a few books from a large bookstore in Union Square, and then took her to a movie at a theater a block away from the bookstore. After they returned to the house, they had dinner together with Renee, after which Geraldine had started to get ready for bed. After tucking her in, Chas had stayed a little longer to talk to Renee, but left soon after. Renee'd offered to let him stay the night in the spare bedroom, but Chas had wanted to get back on the road. The drive back to Atlanta was almost fourteen hours long, but he had no intention of driving it in one shot. Around midnight he stopped at a grimy roadside motel in Maryland to catch a few hours of restless sleep before getting back in the cab.

It was getting dark again when Chas reached the mill house. The windows of the mill house glowed a warm orange, and the rusted truck John used to get around when Chas was away was sitting in front of the house, so he was probably home. Chas pulled his overnight bag from the cab’s trunk, and then picked up the bag with the extra box of chocolate from where he’d left it on the empty passenger’s seat.

John was looking through a large, dust-cover spellbook, a cigarette dangling from his lips, when Chas entered the mill house.

“How was your visit with Renee and Geraldine?” said John without looking up.

“It was nice. Took Geri to the Met Museum, but she got kinda bored so we saw a movie instead. Had dinner at Renee’s place.”

John nodded absently, still absorbed in the spellbook.

“Did I miss anything?” asked Chas, setting his bags on top of the large circular table at the center of the main room.

“Not a thing for once,” said John as he scribbled down something on a small pad next to the book. “Six o’clock and all’s well,” He eyed the paper bag next to Chas’s overnight bag. “That dinner?”

“Nope,” said Chas, pushing the paper bag towards John. “Candy shop gave me an extra box of chocolate by mistake. Want it?”

John was already opening the bag, pitching his cigarette in the general direction of the ashtray. His eyebrows travelled up his forehead when he pulled out the heart box. He squinted down at the swirling gold script next to the rose on the lid. “Will you be my Valentine?” he read. “Aw, that’s sweet.”

“I, uh, got them for Renee and Geraldine,” he said by way of an explanation, feeling a blush creep over the back of his neck.

John smirked and popped the cover off the box. He glanced down at the selection of chocolates in colorful paper cups, picking one at random and popping it in his mouth. His eyes rolled upwards and he let out a low moan. “Mate, that is delicious,” said John, a look of bliss on his face.

Chas turned even redder. “Uh, glad you like ‘em.” He picked up the overnight bag, intending to hole up in the laundry room for a few hours. Hopefully that’d be long enough for John to move from the chocolate back to the musty old spellbook.

John caught his arm before he could flee. Chas froze. “Oi, Chas. Where’re you off to in such a rush?”

“Uh. Going to get my laundry started,” said Chas, holding the bag in front of him just to put something in-between him and John. It sounded like a bad excuse even to his ears.

John grinned at him and reached back into the box of chocolate, picking one at random. Sitting on top of the table, he peeled the paper cup off the chocolate. “Seems wrong somehow that you brought these all the way from New York City and you don’t even get a taste, mate.”

“It’s OK, re--” Chas started, but was interrupted by John holding the chocolate inches away from his face.

“Open your mouth,” said John.

Chas stared at him for a second. “Are you serious?”

“As a bloody heart attack.” He paused. “I’m going to start waving it in front of your face making aeroplane noises if you don’t.”

Chas rolled his eyes but chuckled despite himself, and allowed John to place the chocolate in his mouth. It was one of the cherry cordials, the sweet cherry syrup flooding his mouth when he bit down on it.

It really was the best chocolate he’d ever tasted.

Chas let John grab the straps of the bag from his hands and drop it back on the table. The ends of John’s mouth quirked up for a moment and then he placed his hands on Chas’s cheeks, angling his face towards him.

The kiss John pressed to his lips was surprisingly gentle, almost languid, but with a smoldering desire blazing underneath it, something that’d been burning quietly for a long time;  _‘I love you and I’ve loved you almost as long as I’ve known you.’_

It wasn’t the first time John had kissed him, but all the other times had been when John was nearly falling-down drunk, and even then, they’d been quick, almost playful, brushes against his cheek or forehead, not the lips. And John definitely wasn’t drunk now, despite the faint flush of red across his cheeks.

It was a possibility that Chas'd honestly never thought of before today, but one he realized felt right, like they’d been heading towards this for a long time without him realizing it. 

John leaned back and grinned, taking another chocolate from the box. “See, good, right?”

Chas smiled back at him. “The best.”


End file.
